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Today, [Monday 29th Jan, 2018] I travelled down country, to the coastal settlement of Porangahau. It has one of the nicest beaches on the East Coast [of the North Island]

On the way I decided to be economical with fotos. Even so I found many things I just had to fotograf.

I have lived in Hawkes Bay forty years but I have never been in this bush.

Just outside the entrance I found a small but well formed Tawa tree. [See the Mohi Bush Blog]

It did get me the opportunity I didn't get in the Mohi Bush journey to fotograf the leaves of the Tawa.

Just next to the entrance, in the paddock next door, I saw this amazing tree. It looks as though someone has been plaiting the trunk from five or six different strands.

Just inside the park I found another "plaited" tree.

I also found something wonderful. Some really beautiful tall straight trunked trees. I recognised them instantly as Kahikatea, for they were also found on the farm where I grew up in the [New Zealand] Thames Valley. This is the valley between Thames and Paeroa. but confined to that strip of land between the Waihou River and the hills.

The bark of the Kahikatea is quite similar to that of the Kauri tree, probably New Zealand's most well known tree.

This Kahikatea is on the way to becoming hollow.

The trees were very tall.

These tall straight trunks reach for the sky and they are clean of branches. I kept thinking how much timber they would produce. However Kahikatea is a light, white wood that is relatively soft. It has no knots which makes for beautifully clean timber.